CHAPTER FORTY
Although I had gotten used to my knee aching, it was still bothering me. I was actually able to play soccer and basketball on base, although my performance was limited and nowhere near my full potential.
Finally, after being at McConnell for a little over a year, I got an MRI scan taken. The surgeon I consulted with told me I had a torn meniscus (the cartilage that serves as a cushion between your femur and tibia). It’s a common athletic injury that causes pain, soreness, and stiffness and limits your range of motion, all of which I had been dealing with for quite some time. No wonder my knee had been causing me so much pain.
He told me that it would be beneficial to have a knee scope done, in order to have the meniscus trimmed and cleaned. I agreed to have the procedure and it started to feel a little better afterward, although I knew my knee would never be a hundred percent again.
The surgeon, who held the rank of major, was one of the kindest people I had ever met. His personal qualities, such as his disregard for rank (I was an airman with just one stripe on my sleeve at the time), respect for his fellow human beings, and patient, effective communication are things I will never forget. During my four-year stay at McConnell Air Force Base, I would meet many other people like him, both on and off base, making Wichita another memorable place and time in my life.
As time passed, I did rise in the ranks. I was an Airman Basic with no stripes on my uniform when I first arrived at McConnell. I put on one stripe (Airman) after six months and added another stripe after sixteen months (Airman First Class). Eventually, I got my own room, sharing only the bathroom with the airman next door. As my knee recovered, I began to connect with fellow soccer fans around the base and got back to playing regularly.
One of the first airmen I met on the base was a very friendly guy named Dave. He introduced me to his friend Blake, whose father was a retired Air Force pilot who had been stationed in Izmir years earlier. Blake had spent time there as a child and had many stories to tell about my hometown. He always spoke highly of the Turkish soccer players he competed against in Izmir. For a couple of years in the ’80s, we were both actually living in Izmir. I wondered if we had ever walked past each other.
I remember Blake chewing gum, with a baseball cap on his head and a beer in his hand. We drank quite a few beers together in the dormitories and played in soccer tournaments on the base. We were from different squadrons, so we were on opposing teams.
It was painfully cold during some of those games — Kansas has bitter winters — and I remember the fierce winds blowing across the plains like something out of the movie The Wizard of Oz. It took me a while to get used to not seeing any mountains around Wichita.
Blake was playing for a local non-Air Force team called the Wichita Wheathawks, and he convinced me to try out during one of the tournaments. Afterward, he told me that the team captain, Sean, wanted me to join.
Founded in 1974, the Wheathawks were made up of many quality players, including two players from the professional indoor team the Wichita Wings. I was proud to be a part of this team. During one of the Wheathawks’ games, held on one of Wichita’s many windy days, I picked out our left winger, Torrance. He was about fifty yards away and started to sprint down the field as I sent a long ball heading toward him. He was very fast and I knew he would beat the offside trap.
The ball seemed to be heading perfectly in the direction of his path, but then the wind took it and in seconds it was so far away that my pass looked absurd. I will never forget the sight of Torrance sprinting as hard as possible, only to realize that the ball was far out of
reach. Blake and I used to laugh about that pass every time we talked on the phone.
Playing soccer during snowy, rainy, and windy Wichita winters was challenging and even brutal at times. I will never forget a team, one of our regular rivals, called the Kicking Chickens. After playing against those guys a few times, I began to wonder why they would pick such a silly name. They were a very physical and highly skilled bunch of players, and finally it sank in that maybe that was the whole idea — to make their opponents think they were weak or goofy, when in fact they were a tough, organized team that was very hard to play against.
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